If Only 4ever
by Alyee
Summary: Can Yami and Mizu stop the terrorist leader, Giovanni from destroying the world? Or will Mizu deid trying... R&R. Okay, I suck at summarys... (--;)
1. Prologue: Terror Begins

**EL GIZA.EGYPT   
  
  
Terrorist leader Giovanni carefully observed the man seated comfortably across from him in a wide armchair. He was tall, lean, and gaunt, with a mop of red hair that draped a little over his forehead. His eyes were an intense light green, and he wore a black business suit. He couldn't have been more than twenty-two years old.  
  
Giovanni's eyes dropped from the man down to the silver briefcase he had set upon the table. He knew what was inside that briefcase: billions of dollars' worth of computer microchips for sale on the black market, enough to drive all the computers in the world haywire.   
  
"So, do we have a deal?" Yami Muto said. He extended his hand across the table.   
  
Giovanni leaned back in his chair to think. He locked eyes with his head of security, James, standing by the door. He blinked twice, and James nodded. He had just received his orders.  
  
Giovanni turned back to Yami, still seated composed in his chair. "Very good, sir," he said, "Thank you for doing business with me." He clasped hands with him. Yami smiled; the light, invisible tracking powder that had been on his hand had now been transferred to that of Giovanni.  
  
The terrorist leader reached down and picked up the briefcase. Yami stood and followed him to the door. Giovanni nodded to him. "Your gift was quite valuable," he said, then added. "James will escort you out."  
  
Yami felt something hard pressed to his back: the muzzle of a gun. Several more men stepped out from various other doors, and even—at this, he couldn't help smiling to himself—the closet, each of them pointing a gun at point-black range. Giovanni smiled and closed the door.  
  
Yami supposed he should act surprised, but in reality, he had known where they had been hiding the entire time he had been discussing with Giovanni in the room.   
  
_Any time now…_**

Something crashed through the glass window: a small metal capsule, which immediately began emitting vast amounts of nerve gas which soon filled the entire room. 

Yami, of course, had instantly snapped his gas mask on, and in the state of confusion that followed he dislodged James's gun, ducked into the heavy atmosphere of gas, and in a flash had tripped one of the men and had shot down two of the others. 

The rest were uncoordinated and unable to follow as he jumped right out the broken window and fell several stories—straight into the bed of a pickup truck, lined with an inflatable cushion to gently break his fall.  
  
He quickly got into a sitting position, pulled off his mask, and yelled at the driver in the truck, "We're finished here; hit it!" The driver, who was nothing but a shadow in the truck's body, gave him an affirmative wave, and the car sped off down the street, tires screaming. Yami lay back on the cushions and wiped the sweat from his face. Giovanni, no matter how furious he got, would never be able to locate a Yugi Muuto that didn't exist.

**CIA HEADQUARTERS **

  
   
"Heading directly west, presumably toward the nearest major city, which would be Cairo," said Heero Yuy, studying the digital map carefully on his computer. There was a single blinking yellow dot represented where Giovanni was headed. "Good job, Yami. He doesn't even know he's being traced."  
  
"Are you sure giving him those chips was a good idea?" Yami asked, standing in the office before his superior. "I know they're all fake, but what if he has them tested? There won't be enough time for us to operate." 

Once returning to their headquarters in Washington, DC, Yami had dropped his disguise, washing the red dye out of his tri colored gold, red and black and removing the green eye contacts, revealing sharp, dark violet eyes beneath.

"Not to worry, Yami," Heero said. "You have played Giovanni right into our hands. As long as we're able to locate where his base is, nothing else is of great importance, especially fake chips."  
  
Yami bowed formally, and then turned to leave. Heero's voice stopped him. "Yami, do me a favor," he said, "Call Mizu over to my office. I need to speak with her."  
  
"Sure," Yami said, and stepped out of the office, closing the door behind him. He stared around at the vast building he was now in: the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, of which he was but an agent.  
  
He headed immediately for the office that he and his partner for the past three years, Mizu Li, shared. When he opened the door, she was seated at her desk, rapidly translating a coded document and scribbling the message onto a sheet of lined paper beside the keyboard. She had been the driver in the truck the previous night.  
  
Once again, her gentle beauty struck him as he stepped into the office. Her soft facial features contracted so greatly with her inner personality, violent and daring, nursed under a horrifyingly abusive childhood. She did, however, possess the ability to demonstrate acts of great kindness and caring, and she could be as soft and tender as a mother whenever she chose. 

Watching her, her dark blank hair with a wisp of purple tied up in a ponytail, wearing a white blouse and jeans that ran down to her feet where they opened in the end up to her socks. Concentrating intently on her work, she was the ideal model of a woman dedicated to her profession. Barely twenty-two, the same age as he was, she was angelic in his eyes.   
  
"What are you doing?" he asked.  
  
"Received an email from Syaoran," she said, "Sounds urgent, else he wouldn't have coded it." Syaoran was Mizu's brother, older than she was by four years, and a member of the United States Secret Service.  
  
"Heero wants you," Yami said, dropping into a chair at the opposite desk that was his own.   
  
"Hmmmm…" Mizu stared at the message she had just written. She raised an eyebrow.  
  
"What's going on?" Yami asked.  
  
"Not exactly sure myself," Mizu said. She handed the sheet of paper to him. "It's in a highly-advanced computer code," she said, "An improvement on the old zeros and ones. Now he's added twos."   
  
"Looks like a bunch of crap," Yami said as he read the queer message. "Two birds shot down in the sky around Times Square; the Empire State Building's rod was on fire around six o' clock Thursday. Grilling steak in his kitchen. Smiley Face pin?

"We developed it when we entered intelligence services, so that our communication couldn't be monitored." Pointing to the indicated text on the page, she explained. She smiled.   
  
"Pretty obvious once you know which way to look," Yami said, handing the paper back to Mizu.  
  
Taking it, she put it through the shredder and tossed the remaining pieces into the wastebasket. "Now, if you'll excuse me," she said. "You said Heero wanted to talk with me?"  
  
Yami nodded. Giving her an assistance smile, that had endeared, she walked past him and out the door. Watching, he saw her enter Heero's office.

Smiling softly to himself, Yami turned toward his own desk opposite Mizu's. Sitting down, he leafed briefly through his mail, and was surprised to find a postcard among the various other envelopes. Peering carefully at the childish scribbles, he easily recognized his girlfriends Tea's handwriting. Ever since he had first been recruited by the CIA as a college freshman, Yami and Tea's only connection the two lovers ever had were through the mail and phone calls.  
  
   
  
"Mizu, you've been a little…detached lately." Heero stared hard at Mizu, who stood in the office before him.  
  
Despite her resolve, Mizu could feel her courage tremble beneath his cold stare. "I know," she said quietly, "But it's been hard for being in full-time field work, mission after mission…it's very unnerving." 

  
"More than that, Mizu," Heero said, leaning forward in his seat, "I've scanned your computer records, and I've monitored you for the past few weeks. Your actions are quite jagged."  
  
Even though she knew he had every right to do this, Mizu could feel the anger rising within her, "You've been watching me? Like I'm some sort of government target!?"  
  
"Please, Mizu, calm down," Heero said, "I've just been looking out for your well-being, is all. However, I would like to know what you are doing, and why you're jumping from city to city, first Los Angeles, then Chicago and then Houston. My men even tracked you once out of the country, in Spain."   
  
Mizu hesitated, uncertain of whether or not she should tell him about Syaoran. 

"Go ahead, Mizu," Heero persuade, "You can tell me. It's best that each partner know everything about the other person in a working relationship."  
  
She decided that he was right. "It's Syaoran," she said, "He's having some problems with the government—constant threats of attack, brawls with the media, things like that. He wants to meet me in those conspicuous cities, easy to find, to discuss the matters. There's nothing more to it."  
  
Heero stared at her, as if trying to see whether or not she was being honest. Finally, convinced that she was indeed telling the truth, he turned back to his computer. "I have your word that nothing else is going on?" he said.  
  
Mizu nodded. "Of course," she said, "The last thing I'll do is betray my country."  
  
He nodded, "All right. I just wanted to know what was going on. You can go."  
  
Mizu nodded. Turning, she opened the door and was about to exit when his voice stopped her. "Remember, Mizu," he said, as she turned to face him again. "If there are any problems you want to discuss with me, my office will always be available to you."   
  
She smiled warmly. "Thanks." Closing the door softly behind her, he watched her return to her own office.  
  
"What was he talking to you about?" Yami asked, looking up from one of his letters. Glancing briefly at the envelope, Mizu couldn't conceal a smile.  
  
"What?" he said genuinely confused.  
  
"That's your cell phone bill, isn't it?" she asked.  
  
He made a face. "Fifty-seven dollars. What a butt."  
  
She shrugged. "Then maybe you should stop calling Tea every day."  
  
His face took on an expression of mock-disappointment. "And miss checking up on my priceless girlfriend? Of course not." 

He eyed her questioningly. "Back to where we started…?"  
  
She shrugged off his stare, sinking back into her chair and switching on her computer once more. "Wanted to know why I was hopping around," she said, "I told him about Syaoran."  
  
"How'd he know about your trips?" Yami asked, tossing aside the bill and picking up another letter.  
  
She gritted her teeth, "He's been having men monitor me for the past few weeks." They've been following me everywhere, and he's even gone so far as to snoop around in my computer records. I'm gonna have to clear them all."  
  
"Isn't that a violation of your rights?" Yami asked a little hesitantly, knowing that he was treading on dangerous ground when she was angry.  
  
To his relief, she shrugged again. "You've really got no rights when it comes to you, the CIA, and Heero Yuy." She paused as she entered her password, and then quoted, "You're only committing a crime when you're caught." Highlighting all her records, she erased them all from the hard drive.  
  
"He could get angry with you for doing that, you know," Yami couldn't help observing.  
  
She watched as the last of her history records disappeared from the file archive. "Then he'll have to take those records and shove 'em up his butt," she said. Rising from her chair, she stretched to relieve muscles aching with nonuse.   
  
"Where are you going?"

"Out." 

She closed the door behind her and walked out of headquarters completely. He saw her fill a cup of coffee along the way. She then exchanged a few friendly words with Owari Lee, the head of their mechanical team. Yami couldn't help sneering when he noticed how forced her smile was. Out of all the workers in the CIA, she hated him the most.

**CAIRO.EGYPT   
  
  
"You were right, sir." The head of Giovanni's medical team, Dr. Rex, peered carefully at the reading on the computer monitor. "That Yugi Muuto definitely put something onto your hand."   
  
Giovanni removed his hand from the reader and walked up to the computer, staring as glowing red patches on the image of his right hand showed where something had certainly rubbed off during his handshake with the man. **

Sitting inside a large black truck, his "portable base," he liked to call it, he had become suspicious that Muuto was more than he seemed after his escape the previous night, and had decided to have himself checked out to make sure there were no strings attached.  
  
Apparently there were.  
  
"What is that?" he asked, examining his hand carefully. It looked normal enough.  
  
"You can't see the powder with the naked eye," Rex helpfully informed him, "It's so small and microscopic, it's nearly invisible. You can only detect it with special medical scanners and a computer like this one." He pointed to the patches on the screen. "It's a tracking powder," he said, "Designed so that Muuto could see where you were going every second."  
  
"A very smart boy," Giovanni said, musing, "I wonder whether or not he works for the government, and if he does, for which one? There are just too many out there, waiting to be demolished." He paused, and then ordered, "Do a profile scan on all government files. Search Yugi Muuto. We should come up with something."  
  
The computer scanned millions of records in less than a few seconds, returning with a finding: NO MATCH.   
  
"Hm…" Giovanni thought hard. "Muuto is probably an alias," he said, "Very common among government agents who don't wish to be traced. Upload a facial image from the security cameras, and do a visual scan." Rex obeyed, and the computer spit out one match.   
  
"Yami Muto," Giovanni read, peering over Rex's shoulder, "An agent of the United States CIA. Well, well, well, Yami, I wonder how long you'll last as my enemy?" He smiled with the wickedness of his heart.   
  
One of the other guards entered the room and stood behind the two men for a few minutes, until finally Giovanni turned and acknowledged him. "What is it?"  
  
"We've tested the chips, sir," the guard said, his face firm and serious, "They're all fake, every single one of them."   
  
Giovanni simply shrugged. "I had a feeling they would be," he said. "At least I only had to pay a very small price. Very good, you may go." The guard turned and walked out.  
  
Giovanni stood for a moment, thinking the situation over. Finally, after a long period of musing, he spoke. "I want the powder removed," he said, addressing Rex, "Return it in a package to me. I'm going to send the CIA off on a wild goose chase."  
  
Moments later, an old man carefully backed his car out of a nearby parking lot, unaware to the fact that the CIA was now tracing the powder carefully attached to his license plate.


	2. II

**CIA HEADQUARTERS **

"As the result of very extensive probing into German files we have finally discovered what the German scientists' twenty-year long, top-secret project is about. Although it presents no immediate threat to the United States government, it does very well have the potential to bring the entire country to its knees." Heero Yuy spoke quickly, firmly, letting his words take their proper effect and yet not waiting for them to do so.  
  
"The Nuclear Rod," he said, leaning forward in his chair. "It is the greatest scientific weapon in the history of this planet, and ultimately the most deadly." 

Seated along with him on both sides of the long conference table in the CIA briefing room were Head Intelligence Overseer Duo Maxwell; Owari Lee, the chief of mechanics; and two of his top agents, Yami Muto and Mizu Li.  
  
Satisfied that he had sufficiently captivated their attention, he continued, "It is a five-inch-long transparent metal rod that the German scientists have just this year perfected."  
  
"What kind of a threat does a puny metal cylinder pose for this country?" Owari asked, confused. 

Mizu struggled to conceal her annoyance at his stupidity.  
  
"A very large one," Heero replied, "Contained within this tiny rod which is a mixture of uranium and plutonium, the elements that produce the explosive force of the atomic bomb, but it also contains another element utterly unknown to the rest of us. If the rod is broken, the resulting explosion is more than one hundred times more powerful than that of the atomic bomb. With such vast power contained within this single object, it's a very tempting target to government conspiracy leaders Giovanni among them."  
  
"Are you saying that Giovanni might try to steal the Rod?" Mizu asked.  
  
Duo nodded. "If he gets his hands on it, he'll probably duplicate it, and then drop them all over the world, it's gonna be a hell of a catastrophe."  
  
"We've discovered that the German research facility where the Rod is contained is located in Berlin, the capital of Germany, in the vast underground basement of the Ewig Tanzboden, also known as the Eternal Dance Hall," Heero continued.

"Mizu, you and Yami are going to visit this Dance Hall tonight, disguised as an American couple. You will secure the keys while dancing from one of the guards. I am informed that every one of them has a set of keys into the facility underneath. Once you have the key, follow the blueprints here to enter the facility." He handed her a set of blueprints stolen from the German government, giving a detailed visual description of the research facility. 

"Be careful, because the scientists won't be too happy if they find you two snooping around down there. Once you find the room where the Rod is located, dislodge it. I've heard that it is contained within a case of bullet-proof Plexiglas, and the pressure within the case is maintained at an abnormal amount, so that any change in pressure will trigger the alarm unless permission is granted in the form of a fingerprint and a verbal password from one of the authorities. It is also kept under continuous armed guard, so you will have to dispatch of the guards first. Once you have secured the Rod, high-tail it out of there and get back to the US were you belong. We'll decide what to do with the Rod then. Got it?"

"Everything except one," Yami said, "About the fingerprint and the password…"  
  
Heero nodded. "We have that taken care of," he said, "We've managed to duplicate the right index fingerprint of one of the security guards. We've also analyzed and copied the wave lengths, volume, pitch, tone, accent and all that other crap from his voice. As for the password, we're working on it and I am confident that we will have the correct phrase within a few hours. Using the proper voice changer which Owari here will provide, you'll be able to get in pretty quick. From there, it's simple work."  
  
He nodded to Owari, who rose from his chair, holding several different instruments. 

"This is your voice changer," he said, speaking into it. Now his voice, instead of high and strained, was deep and low with a German accent. "It copies the voice of the guard." 

Next, he held up a rectangular metal case with two lights on its top, one red and one blue. "Use this to put the Rod in on your trip back," he said, "Any X-rays they may give you at the airports won't reveal a thing." 

He then took out a beautiful, tear-drop shaped earring made of a white stone. "This," he said, addressing Mizu, "Is what you'll wear on your ear tonight. If you detach it from the hook and pull this part up, like so…" he obeyed his own commands as he spoke. The white outer covering instantly receded, revealing a glowing blue core. Owari pulled both ends of the earring, and the glowing cylinder grew in length until it was exactly five inches long. It was a perfect replica of the Nuclear Rod. 

"If a security guard happens to pass by the containment room and notice the Rod gone, he'll report it immediately, and it's possible that you and Yami will still be in the hall. Therefore, you can use this as a replacement for the real Rod to buy you some time." 

Lastly, he held up a small remote control. "When you use this baby," he said, "It'll deactivate any security cameras within a 500-meter radius, so that they'll keep replaying the same five seconds of tape over and over and over. That should make sure no one spots you down there while you're working."   
  
Mizu took the earring and the camera control from him, and Yami took the voice changer and the case. Herro nodded. "I'm impressed, Owari," he said quietly.  
  
"That doesn't happen too often," Yami whispered to his partner, and they both snickered.

**BERLIN.GERMANY  
  
  
The doorman of the Ewig Tanzboden looked up as another couple stopped before him. He peered at them carefully, because they did not appear to look German. Perhaps they were tourists, although he was unsure of what race they were. **

  
"Erkennung, Platz," he said. "Identification, please."  
  
The couple immediately produced two passports, from America.  
  
"Amerikaner?" he asked. "American?"  
  
The woman smiled and nodded. "Ja, wir sind touristin. Yes, we are tourists."  
  
The doorman nodded and made room for them to pass. "Sie kommt hine-ingehen. Sich gut unterhalten. You may go in. Have a nice time."  
  
Arm in arm, the couple passed through the doorway and into the magnificent dance hall.  
  
Yami and Mizu were immediately struck by the vastness of the place. The ceiling was arched in a dome hundreds of feet above their heads, and an optical illusion woven into its carved surface made it look much lower than it really was. All around them, a mixture of conversation buzzed, mostly in German. With Mizu dressed in a beautiful red dress with thin straps over her bare shoulders, and Yami wearing a formal black tuxedo, they blended in perfectly.  
  
It wasn't long before the massive doors of the dance hall closed with a resounding boom, and the manager of the Tanzboden stepped up to the podium and began his brief opening speech. 

"Wilkommen, meine Damen und Herren, zum fuenfte jaehrlich tanzend fest, hier an das Ewig Tanzboden. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the fifth annual dance festival here at the Eternal Dance Hall." He continued with his speech, rattling on in endless German, until finally he clapped his hands together in conclusion. "Jetzt, unverzueglich, lassen das festlichkeiten beginnen! Now, without further delay, let the festivities begin!"  
  
Beautiful waltz music began to play. Instantly the hundreds of couples on the dance floor joined hands and began waltzing. Mizu and Yami, off to the side, were looking for the guards.  
  
"They're all on the second floor," Mizu said in dismay, "None of them will ever come down."  
  
"Here's what we'll do," Yami whispered, "We'll go out on the floor and dance. Sometime or another, I'll trip someone. The commotion will bring one of the guards down." Mizu agreed. Together they went out onto the floor, joined hands, and began to waltz, slowly, gracefully, alert to every movement of the guards.  
  
They were dancing shoulder to shoulder so as not to block each other's view. Presently, a German couple came close enough to them so that Yami inconspicuously stuck his foot out and tripped the man. He instantly fell over, and the woman, not knowing what was happening, screamed. As the man fell, he bumped into a waiter trying to weave his way through the moving crowd with a tray of drinks, and the wine spilled onto the lady's dress.  
  
Instantly the other couples, including Mizu and Yami, stopped dancing to watch as the lady screamed and cried and tried to wipe the stain off of her white dress. Mizu spared a glance over Yami's shoulder, smiled and whispered, "Smooth move. The other guards don't seem to care, but one of them's coming down."  
  
Yami instantly turned to the rest of the crowd and said in a loud voice, "Machen sie sich keine Sorgen. Niemand ist verletzen. Sie kommt fortsetzen tanzend. Don't worry. Nobody is hurt. You may continue dancing."

His words relieved the tension, and the rest of the couples resumed dancing as the music increased in volume. The guard continued to make his way through the crowd as the lady stopped screaming, but continued to cry. By now, the man had regained his balance, and was now trying to wipe off the stain with a napkin that the fallen waiter had provided.  
  
"He's coming closer," Mizu whispered in Yami's ear as they continued to waltz, "In just a few moments…"  
  
"Yeah, I see him." Yami's eyes focused on the guard, now only a few strides away from them in the crowd, then quickly lost sight of him again as he and Mizu continued to spin in their waltz.  
  
When the guard was right behind Mizu, she whispered something in Yami's ear, "Flip me!" He obeyed, and as she went down she extended her right arm in a graceful dancing movement, her eyes never straying from his so that it appeared as if she was concentrating only on the waltz, while at the same time reaching the guard's belt with her fingertips and slipping the keys off so softly and gently that he never even felt it.  
  
Her hand came up again, the keys cleverly concealed beneath her thumb, and as Yami brought her up again and joined hands, she deftly slipped the keys down into his sleeve.  
  
"That was easy enough," he whispered as they began dancing again.  
  
"The party's not over yet," Mizu said, smiling. Yami could feel the cold metal of the keys pressing against the skin of his forearm.  
  
The song abruptly finished. By now, the woman and the man had been escorted into a corner of the hall, where the guard who had not yet noticed his missing keys was trying his best to help them.  
  
Scooting off to one side toward the door that led further into the hall, Yami and Mizu waited until the manager stepped up to the podium to announce the title of the next song. 

When everyone's attention was riveted upon him, they turned and slipped silently through the door. When they looked up, they could instantly see the security cameras, at the moment pointed away from them, but liable to swivel around and spot them any time. 

Quickly, Mizu whipped out the remote control and pressed the button. All the cameras instantly froze, and the guards in the main control room watching the cameras saw nothing but an empty hallway as Mizu and Yami jogged down without notice and interference.  
  
However, when they came upon the room that contained the trapdoor leading into the underground research facility, Mizu came to an abrupt halt.

"Damn it!"   
  
"What's wrong?" Yami asked.  
  
In response, she pointed to the security camera above the door, at the moment facing away from them. It looked of a different make than the cameras they had thus far encountered; sleeker, more advanced. 

"I didn't know they had military cameras in here," Mizu whispered, "They must really want to keep the facility under lock and key."

"So just deactivate them," Yami said.  
  
"It's not that simple," Mizu said, "I checked out Owari's remote. It's not designed to deactivate cameras that advanced."   
  
"Then what do we do?" he asked. 

He and Mizu gasped as the camera began slowly to swivel toward them. Within seconds, the guards would be able to see them in the hallways. However, at the last second Yami leaped forward, opened up an electrical control panel in the wall and ripped out all the wires.

Instantly the camera stopped swiveling, and its power light blinked off. In the room beyond the door, the rest of the military cameras did the same thing. The guard in the control room frowned as he saw the cameras' screens go blank.  
  
"That was smart," Mizu said, "But once they see that the cameras here are all down, they'll come down here to investigate. We've got to hurry." She pulled open the door, and she and Yami slipped inside.  
  
As Mizu carefully locked the door, Yami removed the keys from his sleeve. He looked around, up at the ceilings, and noticed more military cameras like the first, except they were all off. Then he looked down at the floor, and spotted a square tile in the middle of the room, a trapdoor of some sort. 

"That must be the door that leads into the facility," he said to Mizu, pointing.  
  
She nodded to him. "Find the lock, and open it with the key. I can't hear the guards coming yet, but I know they'll be here soon."  
  
Yami obeyed, testing the various different keys in the lock until he had found the right one. However, when he inserted it in, it refused to budge. "What the hell…?"  
  
"What's going on?" Mizu asked.  
  
He stared in dismay at the number pad that lay beside the keyhole. "We've got a problem, Mizu …"  
  
She saw the pad too, then quickly turned back to the door. "I can hear the guards coming," she said, "We've got to get in there fast!"  
  
"I don't know what the code is!" he replied in frustration, then extracted a small palm computer from his jacket. "If I can hook this up to the pad, I might be able to upload the code, but that would take several minutes."  
  
There came hard bangs on the door, and cries of, "Aufmachen! Aufmachen! Open up! Open up!"  
  
Mizu retreated from her spot at the door, and quickly came up beside Yami. Bending down, she peered at the number pad. 

"This is hopeless," she whispered, "It'll take forever for us to get in there."  
  
They both froze as they detected a burning smell. Turning, they stared in horror as the knob of the door began to glow red and melt as the German guards burned it from the outside.  
  
"We don't have any more time," Yami said, "We've got to think of something now!"  
  
"We can't start a shootout in a place like this," Mizu said, "Reinforcements will come once they hear the noises and then we're as good as dead." She thought for a brief moment as the knob continued to melt. 

"Wait! I've got an idea!" she cried, turning back to Yami.

The doorknob eventually gave, and the German guards forced the door open. They rushed in with guns drawn and cries of, "Einfrieren! Wer ist dort? Freeze! Who's there?"

To the guards' surprise, the room was empty. The trapdoor was secure, the lock untouched. The room was very dimly lit, and from deep within one of the shadowed corners there came a high giggle. Instantly they turned, and when they got closer they were stunned by the sight they saw: the American couple that had been out on the dance floor earlier was now kissing in the corner of the room.  
  
They lowered their guns and peered at the couple, uncertain of what to do. The man and the woman seemed not to have noticed them, and went on with their stuff. The captain of the squadron, turned to the rest of his men and whispered, "Woreuber tuend? What are they doing?"  
  
One man shrugged. "Sie sind Amerikaner. They are American."  
  
The captain made a face. "Wir tun meussen ihnen aussteigen hier. We have to get them out of here." 

Slowly, they approached the couple, who continued to ignore them. Mizu carefully slipped a knife out of the folds of her dress and into her hand. 

Finally, the captain reached them and said, "Es tut mir wirklich leid, sondern sie meussen verlassen. I'm really sorry, but you have to leave." 

In the next second, Yami and Mizu pulled apart and each tackled two guards. In a flash Mizu's knife was in the captain's throat and the three other men were upon the floor, knocked out cold and unconscious.  
  
"Now get that damn code!" Mizu shouted, "Before more guards decide to check out the situation." 

Immediately Yami hooked the palm computer up to the number pad. Several minutes of downloading, and the computer produced the four-digit code: 814B4. Inserting the key, Yami entered the code, turned the key, and pulled open the trapdoor, revealing a set of polished steel steps beneath.  
  
"After you, Madame," he said, bowing to Mizu with mock-courtesy.  
  
She curtsied. "Why, thank you, sir," she replied, descending carefully down the steps. He handed her a silencer as she went down. There was no telling what one could come across in German territory.  
  
"Come on down," he heard her say a moment later, "The place is somehow quiet." He followed her down, carefully closing the trapdoor behind him.  
  
"We'd better hurry," he said, "More guards could be here any moment."  
  
"This is too weird," Mizu said, "Normally we would hear sounds or something, but there's nothing. It's too quiet."  
  
"Maybe the scientists are in the middle of their coffee break," Yami suggested, only half-joking, he smiled and spit on the ground.  
  
"Don't think so. I smell gunpowder in the air." 

Yami sniffed cautiously, and detected the same burnt, burning odor that Mizu had already picked up. "Come on. Let's go find that room and get out of here as soon as possible." 

He tailed her as she made her way down several strangely empty hallways. Suddenly, as Mizu turned the corner ahead of him, she let out a soft gasp and stumbled backward, into his arms.  
  
"What's wrong?" he asked worriedly. She pointed ahead, and he peeked around the corner—the corpse of a scientist lay flat on the polished steel floor.

"So it's a dead body," he said, "Accidents can happen, especially when you're dealing with something as deadly as the Rod."  
  
"Don't you think I'd know that?" Mizu snapped, and he instantly knew something was wrong by the tone of her voice. "Look closer."  
  
He peered more closely at the body, and discovered a bullet wound in the scientist's chest, still bleeding. The bullet had pierced the heart; it had been instant death.  
  
"I've got a bad feeling about this," he said.   
  
As they continued down the hallways and closer to the room containing the Rod, more dead bodies were discovered, the corpses of scientists and guards alike, all murdered with bullets.  
  
It wasn't long before they finally did reach the containment chamber. Stepping up to the panel lock on the door, Yami pressed his right index finger with the guard's fingerprint on it to the scanner, snapped on the voice changer, and said in a loud, firm voice, "Engel immer Deutschland." The lock analyzed the voice, confirmed it, and the door slid open.  
  
Mizu gritted her teeth in disappointment; Yami glared furiously. The room was littered with bodies and in the middle of it all, the pedestal upon which the Rod would have stood was empty, and the glass case lay shattered to pieces at its base.  
  
"Damn that Giovanni," Mizu murmured, "Damn him to hell."  
  
  


**CIA HEADQUARTERS   
  
**

  
"This'll really make things worse," Heero said thoughtfully. Duo was sitting silently in his chair, as still as a statue, musing over the problem. They were once again in the conference room, but this time Owari was absent; Yami and Mizu, however, having returned from their upset Berlin mission the previous night, were still present.   
  
"Our only hope now is to locate where Giovanni is keeping the Rod, and steal it back," Duo finally said.  
  
"And how are we supposed to do that?" Yami snapped, deeply frustrated at their failure of the previous night. Mizu gave him a compassionate look; he was not used to failure.  
  
"Our time is limited," Heero said, "It may take Giovanni a few days to learn how to duplicate the Rod, but a few days is not a very long time."  
  
"Then we'll just have to work harder," Mizu said quietly.  
  
"I don't know—just give me a moment to think it over," Duo said. 

  
"I'll go talk with Izzy," Heero said, "He might be able to use our computers to discover Giovanni's base." Izzy was the head of their criminology and technological division, but Heero's voice held little hope. Giovanni, being a terrorist leader, would be almost impossible to trace, even with the best computers.  
  
"Yami and Mizu, you two are dismissed for the rest of the day. Even though you didn't secure the Rod, you deserve a break," Heero said. He then rose from his seat at the head of the table, and swiftly adjourned the meeting.  
  
"So you want to go out for lunch or something later?" Yami suggested as he and Mizu reentered their office.  
  
She sighed and shook her head. "Sorry, but my day's already been planned," she said, "I've got to meet Syaoran, remember the paper?"  
  
He scratched his head in disappointment. "Yeah, I forgot. Well then, see you in the evening."  
  
"Maybe next time," she said in an attempt to comfort him.   
  
He smiled. She put on her jacket and strode out of the office.

**NEW YORK**** CITY.NY   
  
  
**

Waiting impatiently beneath a street sign that read TIMES SQUARE, Mizu constantly spared glances at her watch. Little flurries of snow were fluttering through the air. She peered rather contemptuously at the crowd of pedestrians crossing the street nearby, mostly tourists and some New York City residents. To her right a homeless man was begging for money and on the corner of the intersection a black man playing a simple tune on a saxophone trying to earn some money.  
  
Mizu's eyes strayed from the people to the Empire State Building towering overhead. The light from the setting sun had just now set its massive lightning rod in a color of flame. She glanced down once again at her watch. _Where was Syaoran?  
  
Suddenly, someone tapped her on the shoulder. She spun around, and saw her older brother facing her. She grinned happily and they embraced. Syaoran Li, an agent of the United States Secret Service, was Mizu's older brother by four years. When they were younger, they had learned to turn to each other for support under the terrible abusive violence of their father, who was constantly drunk. Even after they had joined different intelligence agencies, their bond had not been tarnished nor eroded in any way by their work.   
  
Syaoran wore clothes as casual and streetwise as her own. His short chestnut golden brown hair was spiked up, held up with unusual gel. He had deep, intense amber eyes that constantly twinkled with mischief.  
  
"C'mon," he said, "I've already reserved seats for us in a rather fancy, sit-down restaurant not too far from here. If we hurry, we might be able to get in before the storm comes along." He looked up at the ominous snow clouds hovering overhead.  
  
Mizu looked down at her clothes with mock-disappointment. "A fancy restaurant?" she repeated, "But I'm not dressed for the occasion."  
  
He shrugged. "Neither am I, but who cares?" Grinning, he took her wrist and led her down the streets.  
  
They reached Syaoran's restaurant in only a few minute's time, and not a moment too soon. Not long after the waiter had seated them, the winds outside picked up and the snowstorm began. Safe inside the warm building, Mizu and Syaoran pitied the pedestrians running past the windows in an attempt to dodge the storm, as kids threw snowballs at them.  
  
Syaoran had purposely reserved a table in the far corner of the room, so that their conversation couldn't be heard by anyone else. Once the waiter had brought their food and drinks, they began to talk.  
  
"Now, this problem is pretty big," Syaoran said, "It concerns something that the German scientists in Berlin have just recently perfected: the Nuclear Rod—"  
  
"The five-inch-long cylinder that packs more than one hundred times the explosive power of the atomic bomb," Mizu said.  
  
He smiled. "Guess you know about it already," he said.  
  
"More than you can imagine."  
  
He took a sip from his glass, and then continued, "Then you probably already know that Giovanni has got his hands on it?"  
  
Mizu nodded. "Been there, done that," she said, "Yami and I were sent on a mission to Berlin to steal the Rod last night. Didn't work, we saw what Giovanni's men left in the research facility."  
  
"Then I can skip a lot of talk," Syaoran said, "And get right down to the point. We have to get the Rod back in safe US hands before Giovanni can decide to use it against us. Therefore, we have to find the place where Giovanni is keeping the Rod—"  
  
"We're working on it," Mizu said, "Izzy's already on the job. He's using our computer system to try and locate the base."  
  
Syaoran winked. "That's where the Secret Service beats the CIA," he said, "We've already found his base."  
  
"You have, where?!"  
He smiled when he saw he had genuinely surprised her. "It's located somewhere in Versailles, France," he said, "We don't know exactly where it is, but we'll keep working on it." He paused for a moment in thought. Suddenly, he said, "You know what? You just gave me an idea. If Heero will listen to us, he can send one of your agents to Versailles to scout out the area, find the base, and steal the Rod back." His smile broadened. "And I know just the agent to do it."_

"Please, sir," Mizu said, "You flatter me."  
  
"Just talk to Heero about it," Syaoran said, "I'm sure he'll agree once he hears the whole story. I think with you and Yami on the job, it can't fail."  
  
Mizu made a face. "Once again, I'm doing your dirty work." They both laughed, and the matter was settled.  
  


**CIA HEADQUATERS**

When Mizu explained the situation to Heero in his office, the head of the CIA immediately agreed, pleased with the opportunity. Yami was more than willing to accompany her, seeing as he had always been fascinated with France, and they were granted permission to board the first flight to Versailles the following morning.


End file.
